The National Trust for Historic Preservation on Wednesday will announce a planned $10 million legal defense fund to push back against the Trump administration’s changes to historic sites and preservation laws.
The fund “will provide resources for legal defense, public advocacy, and community action when historic places and the laws that protect them are under threat,” Brent Leggs, the trust’s president, said in an interview on Tuesday. The announcement is set to come at the organization’s annual summit.
The trust, a nonprofit charged by Congress with helping protect historic sites, last December sued to halt President Donald Trump’s planned White House ballroom. Trump subsequently denounced the group as “treasonists” and “very bad for our country.”
The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 last month that the trust could not prove it had suffered direct harm from Trump’s ballroom project, clearing the way for construction to continue.
The trust has also opposed some of Trump’s other construction projects, including his planned triumphal arch near Arlington National Cemetery, and criticized his administration’s efforts to weaken historic preservation rules.
In the interview, Leggs said that the group was particularly alarmed when a Trump administration lawyer told a federal judge earlier this year that the administration should be able to demolish historic sites — hypothetically even tear down the Statue of Liberty — without opponents having recourse through the courts.
“The ideals and values of historic preservation are being undermined,” Leggs said. “It’s unexpected and it’s disheartening.”
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